The cost of recruiting staff is likely to fall as innovation comes to the online job market. New approaches to recruiting will impact on traditional recruitment agencies who, together with newspaper and magazine advertisers are likely to respond with price cuts.NewJobDirect has launched a service which allows job seekers to scan vacancies on corporate websites. The recruiting organization pays an annual fee of 500 pounds and there are no placement charges. The job seeker is able to carry out a targeted search and the service is free. A high proportion of corporate websites in the public and private sectors carry job vacancies, but it is estimated that about one third receive few or no responses. Link: http://www.newjobdirect.co.uk

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The UK Civil Service continues to expand despite large-scale investment in technology. There are now 499,630 civil servants and this is an increase of 9,390 compared to six months earlier. The numbers have grown from 460,00 in 1999 a rise of 8.6%. Growth over the last year was 3.6%.Although some departments and agencies were given additional work in the last three years, there have been no areas of significant staff savings elsewhere. During this period there was burgeoning investment in technology, including call centers, back office systems and online processing, but it has made little impact on staff numbers.

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By Denis O’Connor Reproduced by permission of the Public Management and Policy Association. Defining what the public expect the police to deliver depends on whose views are being sought. Denis O’Connor, Chief Constable of Surrey Police, describes the dilemma facing police management when different people want different things. Performance indicators are not the answer. He provocatively suggests that the solution may include changing people’s perceptions.

The pace of development towards providing all services electronically by 2005 will have to speed up if the target is to be met. The latest survey of council websites by the Society of IT Managers reveals that 2% of the 467 councils in the UK provide a range of electronic services that meet the 2005 target requirements. Overall the number of transactions available has increased by 50% duiring the last year, but from a low base. The majority of sites (69%) carry basic information.There has been slow progress in improving websites and 66% have remained unchanged in the last year. An encouraging sign is that councils are getting better at responding to e-mail enquiries with 67% replying to a test e-mail query within 3 days, compared to 34% in the previous year.

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Leadership by a headteacher is the common factor in schools that successfully deliver the literacy and numeracy strategies. A survey by Ofsted found that in all schools making good progress the headteacher provided strong leadership and good management. Ofsted inspectors searched for the ingredients of success and found that successful leaders made a convincing case for the need to change, involved staff in the process of improvement and systematically evaluated teaching and learning.Conversely the inspectors found that where leadership was ineffective the leader had an adverse effect on the process of improvement. Common factors for poor performing schools included delay in carrying out a literacy audit, failure to set a firm timetable for training and inadequate arrangements for monitoring classroom practice.

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By Matthew Horne and Daniel Stedman JonesRecent developments in leadership theory and practice have emphasised the growing complexity of leadership. The increasing role of values, communication and interpersonal relationships and the central importance of responding to and shaping continuous change challenge all those in leadership positions. This report provides a ‘reality check’ of leadership in UK organisations. It examines the perceptions and experiences of managers from the private, public and voluntary sectors. It looks in depth at what they think good leadership should involve, and asks whether their experiences fit with their ideals and preferences. The UK needs to recruit and develop growing numbers into management and leadership positions. One recent estimate puts the annual demand for new managers at around 400,000 between now and 2006. The report addresses the question of how leadership potential is best developed and the effectiveness of particular development tools.

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The Joseph Rowntree Foundation wants a debate on the long term prospects for tackling disadvantage. In a report: ‘Tackling Disadvantage – A 20 Year Enterprise’, it argues that the gap that has widened over the last two decades can be narrowed and relative poverty reduced to a minimum. The document sets out the steps needed in the next few years to ensure that the poorest groups in society achieve a fairer share of the nation’s growing prosperity.The report highlights the way in which economically impoverished groups are disproportionately likely to experience problems ranging from poor health to crime. It sets out evidence that a wide range of difficulties among young people including low school attainment to mental health disorders are more common among children from low-income families.

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The entitlement card scheme looks less likely to go ahead following the launch of a project to examine the feasibility of a population register. Entitlement cards would provide a means of confirming identity and help people gain entitlement to products and services provided by both the public and private sectors. A population register would hold core data such as name, address and date of birth and a unique identifier on UK residents. Its use would be limited to public sector organizations.The population register project is steered by the Treasury, but led by the Office for National Statistics. The team are examining ways of bringing together existing data bases such as those for national insurance and income tax, driver and vehicle owner registers, passport holders, council taxpayers and voters. The remit of the project team is to propose ways in which a once-only data capture process would enable government departments and agencies to have easier access to more accurate core information on citizens that they deal with. Comments on the project can be sent to the team leader mailto:Paul.Allin@ons.gov.uk

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By Nigel SprigingsOne of the biggest changes in public sector housing practice in recent years has been the introduction of New Public Management techniques. Housing associations, promoted by successive governments to supplement local authority provision of social housing, have readily taken on the new management agendas of performance indicators and business disciplines in service delivery. The author identifies a conflict between the social purpose of public funding for housing and the business practices of housing associations. The limited accountability of housing associations allows for practices that lead to social exclusion. For local authorities, a parallel conflict arises because of government emphasis on ‘what works’ in public housing management, rather than on ‘what matters’.

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Victims of crime have been recruited to form a Victims Advisory Panel. The Panel will meet four times each year and report directly to Home Secretary David Blunkett. The creation of the Panel is one of the measures to fulfill the Government’s pledge to put victims and witnesses at the heart of the Criminal Justice System.The ten members of the panel have been affected by a variety of crimes including murder, rape and stalking. Many have experienced what it is like to give evidence in court. They will play an important role in the reforms outlined in the Criminal Justice White Paper by identifying good practice and promoting a culture where all victims and witnesses of crime are treated fairly and with respect. They will also give their views on how amends are made for the harm victims have suffered. By sharing their experiences it is hoped that they will generate ideas and practical proposals for improving services to victims and witnesses as well as advising Ministers about their needs.

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